THE PRINCIPLES OF ENGLISH AGRICULTUKE. 133 



during which land is renovated, cleaned, and made fit for a 

 succession of other crops. I have already endeavoured to 

 point out some of the most interesting matters in relation 

 to the cultivation of roots, and the preparation of the land for 

 them. That lead me to the cleaning of the land, because 

 it is most essential that land should be cleaned in anticipation 

 of the root crops. We may depend upon it, if land goes 

 foul into roots it will continue foul until the end of the 

 chapter. There is no other opportunity of cleaning land, and 

 that is readily seen by passing in review the course of what 

 is called the Norfolk rotation. 



After roots, the ground is speedily put into barley ; upon 

 the young barley you sow your grass-seeds, so that when the 

 barley is severed from the ground the third crop, or clover 

 crop, is in absolute possession of the ground, and it is there- 

 fore perfectly impossible to attempt any cleaning operations 

 during that period. Finally, after the clover has laid one, 

 two, or three years, as the case may be, it is ploughed or 

 pressed, well harrowed, and drilled with wheat. It is not 

 often that any cleaning operation is attempted, but only what 

 I have briefly indicated. Therefore, if the ground has been 

 foul at the time when it went into the root crop, depend 

 upon it, it will come out ten times fouler when the wheat 

 crop is taken off. In fact, if ever there is a period in 

 farming in which a little couch and a little foulness of the 

 ground is excusable, it is after the wheat crop has been 

 harvested, at the close of the four or five years' course. 



This is the reason that I laid such stress upon the import- 

 ance of cleaning land for the root crop. After cleaning I 

 recommended the application of farmyard dung in sufficient 

 quantities, to be ploughed in as deeply as we could or as we 

 dared, and it was then to be left to receive the influences of 

 the winter frosts. 



The spring work the spring cultivation in some cases 



